The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-11-09

by Gods help to practice unlimited
forgiveness. 1t improves ones body and
soul. 1t will make you m assure three or lour
more inches around the chest, and improve
your respiration so that you can take deep
er and longer breath. 1t improves the coun-
tenance by scattering the gloom, and bright,
ening the forehead. and loosening the pinched
look about the nostril and lip, and makes yon
somewhat like God Himself. He is omnipo-
tence, and we cannot copy that. He is indie
pendent of all the universe, and We cannot
copy that. He is creative, and we cannot
copy that He is omnipresent, and we cannot
copy that But He forgives with broad sweep
ali faults, and all neglect, and all insults,
and all wrong doing, and in that we may copy
him with mighty success. Go harness that
| sublime action of your soul to all autumnal
sunset, the hour when the gate Of heaven
opens to let the day pass into the eternltles
and some or the glorieS escape this way
through the brief opening. We talk about
the Italian sunsets and sunset amid the Ap
pennies, and sunset amid the Cordilleras.
But will tell you how you may see grander
sunset than any mere lover of nature ever be-
held; that is, by fiinging into it all your
hatreds and animosities, and let the horses OF
| fire trample them, and the chariotS of fire
roll over them, and the spearmen of fire
stab them, and the breath of fire consume
them, and the pillows u fire overwhelm
4
sunset The sublimest thing you can do is
forgiveness. Along the glowing banHs of
! this coming evcntide let the divine and the
human be concurrent
Again: We should not let the sun 60 down
on our wrath because it is Of little Importance
! what the world says OF you or does to you
when you have the affluent God of the sunset
as your providcr and defender. People
ealk as though it were q fixed spec
tacle of nature and always the same.
But no one ever saw two sunsets alike,
and if the world has existed 5000 years there
have been about $780, 900 sunsets, each of
them as distinct from all tine other pictures in
the gallery of the sky as Titian's Last Sup.
per-" Rubens' descent from the Cross"
Raphael's TRANSPORTATION" and Michael
Angeles "Last Judgment" are distinct
from each other. II that God, of such
infinite resouces that he can put on the wall
of the sky each night more than the Louvre,
and the Luxembourg, and the Vatican, and
the Dresden and Venetian galleries all in one,
is my God and your God, our provider and
protector, what is the use of our worry.
ing about any human antagonism! If we are
misinterpreted, the God of the many colored
sunset can put the right color on our action
If he can afford to hang such masterpieces
over the outside wall of heaven and have
them obliterated in an hour, he must be very
u
safety. If all the garniture of the western
heavens at eventide is but the upholstery of
one of the windows of our future home, what
small business for us to be chasing enemies!
Let not this Sabbath sun 60 down upon your
wrath.
Mahomest said "The sword is the key of
Heaven and hell drop of blood shed is bet
ter than fasting, and wounds in the day of
Judgment respendent as vermilion and odor-
iferous as musk" But, my hearers, in the
last day we will find just the opposite of
that to be true, and that the sword never un-
locks heaven, and that he who heals wounds
is greater than he who makes them, and that
on tho same ring are two keys: Gods for
giveness OF us and our forgiveness of enemies;
and these two keys unlock Paradise.
And now wish for all of you q beautiful
sunset in your earthly existence. With some
of you it has been long day of trouble, and
with others of you it will be far from calm.
When the sun rose at o'clock it was the
morning of youth, and fair day was
propheSied, but by the time the MONDAY OF
mid-life had come and the clock of your
earthly existence had struck 10, cloud racks
gathered and tempest beloved in the track
Of tempest But as the evening of old age
approaches Ipray God the skies may brighten
and the clouds be piled up into pillars rs
of celestial temples to which you 20, or
move as with mounted cohorts come to take
you home. And as you sink out of sight be-
low the horizon may there be a radiance
of Christian example lingering long after
you are gone, and on the heavens be writ
ten in letters of sapphire and on the waters
in letters of OPAL and on the hills in letters of
emerald: "Thy sun shall no more 20 down,
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself. for
the Lord shall be thy everlasting light and
the days of thy mourning shall be ended" "
So shall the sunset of earth become the sun
rise of heaven.